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SEMANTICS

(THE MEANINGS OF LANGUAGE)

Semantics is the study of meaning that is used to understand human expression


through language. Semantics is perhaps the most difficult part of the grammar of a
language to learn. The reason is because, basically, meanings in a language are
indefinite/undetermined.

Remember

that

language

is

arbitrary

(one

of

the

characteristics of languages). It is arbitrary because the relationship between forms


and their meanings are sometimes cannot logically proved.

Some important areas of semantic theory or related subjects include these:

Symbol and referent


Conceptions of meaning
Words and lexemes
Denotations, connotations, implication
Pragmatics
Ambiguity
Metaphor, simile, and symbol
Semantics fields
Synonyms, antonym, and hyponym
Collocation, fixed expression and idiom
Semantic change and etymology
Polysemy
Homonymy, homophones, and homographs
Lexicology ang lexicography
Thesauruses, libraries, and web portals
Epistemology
Colour

Polysemy
Polysemy is the state or phenomenon in which the words that have more than one
meaning. In other words, it can be described as multiple meanings of words. The words
are considered to be related etymologically.
The concrete form of polysemy is called polyseme
Examples:

Synonymy
Synonymy is the state or phenomenon in which the words that sound different
(different in pronounciation) but have the same or identical meaning as another word or
phrase.
The concrete form of synonymy is called synonym
Examples:
-

Small
Big
Mother and father
Politicians

=
=
=
=

little
large
parents
statesman

However, true synonyms are rare. In most cases, synonyms may differ in one or more of
the following aspects:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

Difference in origin
Difference in the shades of meaning
Difference in socio-expressive meaning
Difference in stylistic meaning
Differences in collocation and distribution

Antonymy
Antonymy is the state or phenomenon in which the words have the sense relation which
involve the opposite of meaning.
The concrete form of antonymy is called antonym (opposite)
a. Complementary antonyms
Examples:
- Dead alive
- Single married
- Male female
b. Gradable antonyms

Examples:
- Hot cold
c. Relational opposites
Examples:
- Wife husband
- Student teacher
- Father son

Hyponymy
Hyponymy is the state or phenomenon that shows the relationship between more
general term (lexical representation) and the more specific instances of it.
The concrete forms of sets of word (the specific instances) are called hyponyms
Examples:
The lexical representation of:
Red, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, is color
Thus, we can say that: red is a hyponym of color, and so on
Sometimes there is no single wor in the language that encompasses as set of hyponyms.
Examples:
Clarinet, guitar, piano, trumpet, violin are hyponyms because they are musical
instruments that has these words as its hyponyms.

Idiom
An idiom is a group of words in which the meaning cannot be explained interms of the
habitual meanings of the words that make up the piece of language.
Idioms are similar in structure to ordinary phrases except that they tend to be frozen
in form and do not readily enter into other combinations or allow the word order to
change.

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